Deploying a Laravel app on Heroku takes about 15 to 20 minutes if you follow the right steps. The short version: create a Procfile pointing Apache to your public/ directory, push via Git, set your environment variables as Heroku Config Vars, add a database addon, and run migrations via a one-off dyno. Your app is live. But that is only half the story. Most Laravel deployment guides stop at “it works on localhost” and skip the parts that actually matter in production: queue workers that need their own dyno, a filesystem that wipes itself on every deploy, a scheduler that cannot run every minute, and a MySQL workaround that involves a third-party addon with a 5MB free tier. This guide covers all eight steps to get Laravel running on Heroku with Laravel 11 and 12, including the configuration most tutorials skip. It also covers what breaks in production, what it costs when you add it all up, and why a growing number of Laravel developers are moving to platforms that handle this setup automatically.…